Hmm... they considered her fit for reintegration due to her young age but... does that mean they shoot the majority of refugees?Or does the "just beaten up" look in that picture mean that they forcefully remove people from their wasteland communities and only the youngest ones are susceptible to eventually forget? What if it's actually possible to survive unaided in some wasteland areas, and it becomes deserted and ready for looting only after some officers do an initial cleanup to remove the competition?I kinda do see ARC as a dictatorship of the Evil kind. And before you ask, yes, there are other kinds of dictatorships. There are the ones who remove a press licence if they don't like what the papers say, and there are the ones who disappear the journalist's family.

Also now, Charlie will find a copy of his teammates' medical file in those folders and remove one page he wants explanations over. After an accident at the hospital archive, they use those files to restore the lost ones, before the missing page is returned. Unfortunately, it was the page where the info on Milo's deadly penicillin allergy is written. Later that month, he gets treated for an ingrown toenail and dies.

very interesting. Certainly adds weight to the idea that there is something more at work than just forming looting teams and the half-life project is the only big secret

Will we find out if people's "permanent records" can survive a zombie apocalypse?

Charlie gets suprised and has to put the files back quickly. He accidently puts milos file in the "can't be integrated pile". ARC officials are a little confused when they find it, but they follow the process to the letter, rules are rules after all.

This is an interesting one. Not only is the language of the documentation well done, but the file is given in a way that each piece of information partially obscures something else. That one image really rewards analysis and encourages speculation; it made me go back and read over some of the other pages I hadn't looked at in months.

I kinda do see ARC as a dictatorship of the Evil kind. And before you ask, yes, there are other kinds of dictatorships. There are the ones who remove a press licence if they don't like what the papers say, and there are the ones who disappear the journalist's family.

I agree on both counts. Dictatorships can work well given some separation of power, a close connection between leader and led, and/or the ability to emigrate. Life in the ARC is perhaps more reminiscent of American democracy shortly after 9/11, when external threats prompted the government to wage war on dubious pretexts, practice surveillance on its citizens, and employ interrogation techniques straddling lines drawn by the Geneva Convention.

We are still hearing from folks whose preorders or regular orders didn't arrive- if you ordered a book and it never got there, drop me a line at my email address, and I'll send a replacement. I've tried to make sure that everyone who has sent me an email got a replacement, but there were something like 200 that may have got lost/damaged/etc. so I'm sure I've missed a few

The joys of discovering that your shipping packages ain't all that, I tell ya... We use better packages, now. Stronger packages. Tougher... they are EENVEENCIBLLLLE. We hope, anyway.

Obviously Charlie isn't doing anything wrong or illegal, or potentially trouble in the nearer future. While we avert our attention to some facinating wall paper, I want to pose the question, "what the freck is Mercer doing?" Is that an X-ray pic? And to what or whom? We know he's supposed to be researching the virus, but is that all he's doing all on his lonesome?

This is an interesting one. Not only is the language of the documentation well done, but the file is given in a way that each piece of information partially obscures something else. That one image really rewards analysis and encourages speculation; it made me go back and read over some of the other pages I hadn't looked at in months.I agree on both counts. Dictatorships can work well given some separation of power, a close connection between leader and led, and/or the ability to emigrate. Life in the ARC is perhaps more reminiscent of American democracy shortly after 9/11, when external threats prompted the government to wage war on dubious pretexts, practice surveillance on its citizens, and employ interrogation techniques straddling lines drawn by the Geneva Convention.

It was fresh in my mind. I've been writing an essay about the problems with democracy. There are definitely good things to say about it, but on the whole I wonder whether Washington would have fought the Redcoats at all if he could have read the history books in today's schools beforehand. ("I cannot tell a lie / these people couldn't vote their way / out of a cherry pie.")

Let's see how Charlie manages to deal with this sudden situation. Perhaps he might say that he was in the bathroom and he had a sudden urge to read a buttload of papers about Project Wastelander while he was at it. Guess I'll have to wait and see.